SUI Public Chain: From High Performance to Programmable Internet Infrastructure

As the Web3 technology stack continues to evolve, smart contract languages are migrating from Solidity to the more secure and resource-abstracting Move language. The Move language was originally developed by Meta for the Diem project and features characteristics such as resources being first-class citizens and formal verification friendliness, making it an important choice for the underlying architecture of the new generation of public chains.

In this context, Aptos and SUI have become the dual core representatives of the Move ecosystem. Aptos continues the native Move technology stack, emphasizing stability, security, and modular architecture; SUI, on the other hand, inherits the Move security model while introducing object-oriented data structures and parallel execution mechanisms, forming a SUI Move branch with greater performance breakthroughs and innovations in development paradigms, reconstructing on-chain resource management and transaction execution modes. SUI not only pursues high performance but also rewrites the blockchain operating mechanism, creating a technical foundation for complex on-chain interactions and large-scale Web3 applications.

1. Reshaping the Public Chain Landscape

After Solana enters the Firedancer era, its performance may remain leading, but it is still in the "single-chain high-frequency trading" paradigm. SUI attempts to respond to demands beyond performance with horizontal stacking and end-to-end privacy/storage. This distinguishes it from Aptos or Sei. For investment institutions:

• Value high TPS and sustained transaction fees, Solana and dedicated chains may yield faster returns.
• Emphasizing "new type applications" and horizontal interface control, SUI's opportunities come from the unsaturated SaaS/privacy/offline track.
• Aptos and SUI have a high overlap in DeFi and BTCFi, and it is necessary to guard against competition within the track.

Compared to Solana: SUI uses the more secure Move language, avoiding vulnerabilities caused by Solana's Rust+Sealevel parallelism, and has lower hardware requirements, which is beneficial for decentralization. The performance is comparable, with SUI having lower confirmation delays. In terms of ecology, Solana is more mature, while SUI is growing faster, achieving differentiation through new areas like BTCFi. In the future, both may coexist, with Solana leaning towards the crypto-native ecosystem, while SUI focuses more on Web2 penetration and gaming social.

In comparison to Aptos: both originate from Diem, but the SUI object model is more efficient. Aptos positions itself as a robust financial infrastructure, while SUI attempts a diverse narrative, achieving faster user growth. The SUI Foundation provides substantial support, with monthly active addresses and on-chain transaction volume both superior to Aptos. The market currently favors SUI.

Comparison with Sei: Sei is a dedicated trading chain with a narrow positioning, relying on liquidity mining, making it difficult to form a complete ecosystem. SUI follows a general L1 route, supporting diverse applications and demonstrating stronger risk resistance.

Compared to Ethereum L2: SUI has advantages in ultra-low latency and high concurrency, making it suitable for high TPS gaming and other applications. L2 enjoys strong capital network effects and security endorsement. They may coexist in the long term, but in the short term, it depends on who can better meet application needs.

2. Ecological Data Shines

Since the SUI mainnet went live in May 2023, the user growth has been rapid. By April 2025, over 123 million user addresses have been created on-chain, with monthly active addresses exceeding 40 million. In terms of new users, the average daily new wallet addresses have climbed from 150,000 to over 1 million.

In terms of capital inflow, as of November 2024, a total of approximately $944.8 million has been bridged in. By mid-2025, the total locked amount for SUI cross-chain is approximately $2.55 billion. The supply of stablecoins has also seen significant growth, reaching a historic high of over $800 million in mid-April 2025.

SUI has fully covered high-frequency scenarios such as on-chain order book DEX, real-time PvP, and social interactions. With the Mahi-Mahi upgrade targeting over 400,000 TPS, SUI is continuously solidifying its scalability moat. However, the downtime event in November 2024 serves as a warning that the stability of the core protocol still requires ongoing verification.

The current SUI ecosystem data is impressive:

1. Formation of capital structure resilience. The steady-state TVL in Q2 2025 is approximately $160 million to $180 million, with stablecoins + LSD accounting for 55%. The proportion of institutional addresses has doubled to 14% within six months.

2. The developer retention rate is high. The 24-month survival rate for SUI is 37%, higher than that of Aptos and Sei.

3. User structure is bimodal. DeFi contracts account for 49% of on-chain calls, while content applications contribute approximately 35%.

4. Potential Growth Space: Two major gaps in RWA and native derivatives. In terms of RWA, cooperation has been established with multiple institutions to test the tokenization of physical assets. Regarding native perpetual/options, the current open interest of on-chain perpetual contracts is approximately 20 million USD, leaving more than 10 times growth potential.

3. Key Forces in the Ecosystem

In the process of the SUI ecosystem's emergence and rapid rise, OKX Ventures played an important role. Its investment strategy is based on a profound understanding of the SUI technical architecture and ecological potential, allowing for forward-looking and systematic arrangements. OKX Ventures made early investments in core projects such as Cetus, Navi, Momentum, and Haedal, covering key DeFi sectors including DEX, lending, and LST.

The SUI Foundation and Mysten Labs' investments at the infrastructure layer have established deep competitive barriers for the ecosystem. Mysten raised over $300 million in total financing from 2023 to 2024 for SUI development, with most of it directed towards the research and development of "thick infrastructure" such as Walrus, Seal, and Nautilus. This strategy differs from ecosystems that emphasize end-user applications; SUI chooses to first address the shortcomings at the base layer and then stimulate application innovation through Grants and hackathons.

4. From "Fastest L1" to "Programmable Internet Stack"

SUI is transitioning from a "high-performance parallel chain" to a "global coordination layer," integrating computing power, storage, identity, liquidity, and privacy computing into the same native protocol stack. The six components (Sui mainnet, DeepBook, SuiNS, Walrus, Seal, Nautilus) are already running on the mainnet or public testnet, providing horizontal composability.

Based on these infrastructures, SUI has opened up multiple growth directions:

1. Web2 SaaS Migration: Non-financial interactions such as content distribution, social networking, and identity verification account for approximately 42% of the mainnet call frequency.

2. Offline networks and extreme scenarios: Testing non-IP networks such as SMS and LoRa, targeting the needs of weak network scenarios.

3. AI Verifiable: Focus on enabling on-chain auditability of AI weights, inference logs, and data sources through Seal+Nautilus.

In terms of technological advancements, SUI continues to improve foundational consensus, protocol upgrades, developer experience, and user tools. The Mysticeti engine achieves sub-second finality and 12,000 TPS throughput; the Move language introduces generic specialization, macro expansion, etc.; and there is deep integration with mainstream wallets to optimize user experience.

In terms of ecological components, SUI builds a full-stack architecture covering storage, encryption, and privacy computing through Walrus, Seal, Nautilus, and others. It also brings together middleware and development tools such as SUIPlay, Move, DeepBook, zkLogin, and SUIBridge.

In terms of security governance, SUI demonstrated a rapid response capability after the Cetus hacking incident by freezing the hacker's address through on-chain governance and recovering $162 million in assets. A security fund was initiated, protocol open-sourcing was promoted, audit incentives were strengthened, and governance processes were optimized.

These developments indicate that SUI is shifting from the narrative of being the "fastest L1" high-performance chain to a higher positioning of "Programmability Internet stack."